I'm not religious so Googled the story of Gideon in the Bible. It appears he was a hero.

I also found that the name is derived from the Hebrew 'Gada' which means to hew down, or cut off. Some name sites seem to have taken that and applied the meaning of tree feller, but there isn't any mention of what is being hewed or cut off (there is certainly no mention of any hands being cut off!) One site that looked into the etymology of the name seems to think it could be linked with him hewing down the enemy - he led a small army of 300 men and won despite being vastly outnumbered. (link here)

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